Eater of Life
by Trivia
Summary: Prologue to the Hannibal Lecter Series when Will Graham is investigating the Chesapeak Ripper case.


C H A P T E R  
I 13 March, 1975 Outside Greenock, Maryland  
  
Special Agent Will Graham pulled up next one of the police cars, which were parked randomly around the front of a large forest cabin. As he stepped out he looked around at his surroundings. He stood next to his car in the middle of a dusty gravel path that led from the opening in the trees to the front of the two story cabin and work shed. Both the house and the shed were built with arch-style roofs and very large, open windows. Graham's eyes were snapped away from the house when a county police officer stepped up to him and said in a heavy West Virginian accent, "Are you the man from the FBI?"  
"Yes, Will Graham," he replied, quickly shaking the man's hand and revealing his identification, "Has the body been moved?"  
"No, our photographer should be finishing up now, so you can look around before we clean up."  
"Yes, thank you." Graham started to walk up the small slope towards the tool shed when the cop continued.  
"Excuse me, sir, I just have a question for you," He paused as Graham looked back on the young officer, "How do you know it's a man? I mean I've only ever heard of this person being talked about as a man."  
Graham stood in silence for a moment, contemplating whether to say or not, "These types of killers are made from extreme stress, usually in childhood, women don't usually take out their frustration and anger with violence, while men will be willing to fight it off. Also his second victim was a twenty-four year old man who ran marathons and went to the gym every day. Even a very strong woman couldn't have fought him to the ground."  
"Oh, yes sir," the officer looked slightly sickened by the idea that this man, this monster, could be more powerful than he had thought. He stared off to the side of the house and leaned back on to a car, a blanked expression on his face.  
Graham stepped up to the front porch of the cabin and looked around. The porch was hardwood and there were two wicker chairs with a table between them. To the right and left of the front door, which was centered in the wall, were two, single-pane windows that looked into a small living area and study. Graham continued past the house and walked past the group of three cops that were standing to the right of the shed.  
The wooden door sat open and Graham waited as the photographer walked out. The shed was back to being a fresh crime scene, the picture from the killer's mind.  
Graham walked around the door and saw 54 year old James Hubbard, hanging off of the wall of his own shed. He was naked except for a pair of shorts that looked to have been blue jeans, cut away above the knee. His arms were strung up by the wrists and secured onto heavy-duty steel hooks, and his ankles were strung onto the wall in a similar fashion. There were two iron pegs punctured through his thighs to stick out on the other side, and a pair of scissors sat jabbed into his left shoulder. The killer had also taken a hatchet and swung it to cut deep into Mr. Hubbard's abdomen.  
Will looked to his left and right, examining the various tools and materials spread over the long wooden tables that stretched across each side of the shed. Behind each of the tool benches there were tall pegboards with hooks of various types and tools hanging off of them. Mr. Hubbard was also hanging from a tall pegboard, though the tools that had hung there were now scattered across the floor under his feet, along with broken or warped pieces of wood.  
  
Graham walked out from the cramped shed and into the sunlight of a Tuesday afternoon. The same curious cop that had first greeted Graham walked up to him and said, "So, is it him sir?"  
"Yes," replied Will looking down slightly. He turned his head as the sound of approaching cars hit his ears. Two black Lincoln cars came driving out from the forest path. They parked suddenly beside and behind Graham's car. From the passenger seat of the first vehicle came Jack Crawford, the head of the Behavioral Sciences Department at the FBI in Langley. He was only 43, but managed to look eight years older, he stayed sullen faced as he walked up to Will.  
"So, is this number six?" he asked, crossing his arms.  
"Yes, no one else would do something like this."  
  
+ + + + +  
  
14 March, 1975 FBI Headquarters  
  
Will Graham leaned back in his chair. He rubbed his tired eyes and then looked back onto his desk. The descriptions and photos from each of the crime scenes, as well as background information on each of the victims was laid out across his desk. He kept very little in his cramped office, only his desk, a chair, and a three drawer filing cabinet. The top two drawers were full, he had devoted the middle one to the Chesapeake Ripper case, but all of it's contents were laying on his desk. The top drawer sat devoted to the first Serial Killer that he had had to track down, Garret Hobbs. Graham had found Hobbs in his apartment. When Will had seen what Hobbs was doing to his own daughter there was a struggle, but in the end Will had managed to end Hobbs' life.  
After the police had come and the children of Garret Hobbs that were still alive had been taken away to a children's hospital, Will became ultimately depressed and eventually he was ordered by Jack Crawford to spend some time in the Mental Hospital. After three months of therapy and isolation from the rest of the world, Will Graham left the Hospital and managed to return to his job.  
After two months of investigating different murders and tracking down the perpetrators, Will Graham was called in to investigate a particularly morbid crime. A woman had been found seated on a bench in Arlington Cemetery in Washington DC on 14 December. When the medics had taken her to the morgue and the autopsy was done, it was apparent that this woman had died from a bullet to the abdomen, but had then been operated on by a seasoned doctor who removed three of her ribs on her right side before sewing up the wound.  
The fingerprints that they took off of the victim where cross- examined with those of missing persons. A match came up, Samantha Cyril, 26, first reported missing on 11 December.  
After Miss. Cyril there seemed to be another murder of this type almost every ten days. On 23 December, 24 year old, Jonathan Murray was found under the skeletal remains of a dinosaur in the Museum of Natural History. His stomach had been removed and the killer hadn't bothered to sew the victim's chest back up and had smeared some of his blood over the jaw of the skeleton, giving the scene the look of a dinosaur attack. The third victim, 22 year old Darcy Taylor was found floating in the Chesapeake Bay, her tongue had been removed.  
This was when the National Tattler invented the name "The Chesapeake Ripper".  
On 30 January, 27 year old Harvey Collins was found decapitated in the back seat of his car, which was parked on the edge of the Chesapeake Bay. His head was placed in the driver's seat and found that the frontal portion of the right lobe of his brain was removed. 38 year old, Cal Redding was found on 16 February in the back of his pickup truck. His liver had been removed.  
Now the Chesapeake Ripper had killed James Hubbard, removed his kidney, and hung him from his own wall with his own equipment stabbed into him in various places.  
  
Will looked up at the wall in front of him, a clock sat there ticking with the time reading 11:24am. He hadn't slept very well the night before and had left for work by six a.m. Now he was wishing that he was back at home, in bed with his wife Molly, with her son, his step-son, sleeping in the next room. 


End file.
